TarotJam Entry 28

It's a bit dumb to be crunching for this project, but that's basically what I started doing this weekend. I'm going to work on the game during my lunch hours so I can put more time into it and finish it faster. I'm still super into the project, but it's starting to really slip away from my planned schedule, time-wise, so I really have to step it up.

The Death card is quite finished. I can't test it today because I forgot to bring my save file at work, but I think that all the mechanics are there! Tomorrow I'll work on Judgement and the final card mechanic for Tarot Trials!

Time spent on the project so far: 88 hours

TarotJam Entry 27

Today I unlocked the Fool card and started working on the framework for a new mechanic. When you die - which almost inevitably happens - you get to draw a card if there are still any in your card chest, that card will influence your next run in significant ways. Effects such as being able to see the order of the cards coming up, being able to choose between what you draw or respawning enemies will help or hinder you in the next run through! These cards level a bit faster than others, 3 times the speed.

Time spent on the project so far: 79 hours

TarotJam Entry 26

All I did today was work on new enemies! I'm letting the situation grow out of hand! I seriously should stop hand crafting them all!

Time spent on the project so far: 78 hours

TarotJam Entry 25

The Justice card is mainly done and I'm adding enemies up to the fourth level of each map. I've re-worked how the card unlocks are distributed so you get some of them a bit quicker and I'll be ready to add the new endgame mechanic tonight. Things are still progressing!

Time spent on the project so far: 76 hours

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TarotJam Entry 24

I'm starting to work on the Justice card and testing the game a bit, I'm almost at the point where I'll introduce the second to last mechanic for all cards, effects that influence your next run of the game! That being said, the last mechanic is just a flat boost to your level-up stats, so it's no big deal and should be done easily :)

Time spent on the project so far: 74 hours

TarotJam Entry 23

A bunch of work was done this weekend, so today I'm taking a look at what's done and what's left. These numbers are subject to change depending on how quick I want to be done with the game ;)

• Cards done: 10 / 21
• Core mechanics done: 4/6
• Monsters done: 33/210

As it should be clear, if I cut corners somewhere, it's probably going to be at the monsters part of the game. Maybe I could only create unique enemies for half the maps and then you'd fight stronger versions of them?

Time spent on the project so far: 72 hours

TarotJam Entry 22

Today I've mostly implemented the gear mechanics of the existing cards I already have. This took a bit longer than I wanted to, but at least it's done and this weekend I'll work on Temperance and a few more cards. Let's hope I get to the next batch of new mechanics before next week, ideally I would be done with all mechanics this weekend and only content creation and light testing would be required before I can say that this is done!

Time spent on the project so far: 64 hours

TarotJam Entry 21

Today I just finished the acquisition and random generation of gear, fixed a few bugs with the map and didn't do much else. Tomorrow I'll start implementing the mechanics of the gear related to the cards I already have and start working on the Temperance card. 

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Time spent on the project so far: 62 hours

TarotJam Entry 20

Today I spent mostly on generating the gear you'll find in the chests, deciding what the gear does, implementing some UI stuff, but I'm not completely done with that - this will probably come tomorrow. Then I have to work on the Temperance card, and all the other tier-3 unlocks. The player will unlock the last two mechanics later, so I don't have to concern myself with those right now.

Time spent on the project so far: 61 hours

TarotJam Entry 19

After spending the weekend (plus yesterday as a small break) away from Tarot Trials, I resumed development on new features and content. Mainly the addition of gear to the game, leaving only two core mechanics - with one of them being very simple - to implement before I'm done with that kind of stuff. Then it will all be content generation related, and some light testing. I can see this being done on time!

Here's a screenshot of the bestiary right now, I don't have all the enemies unlocked yet.

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Time spent on the project so far: 59 hours

TarotJam Entry 18

Today was mostly balance, testing new card features and making sure that all the mechanics implemented so far work. I've been trying to unlock a new card by playing the game and I realized that the odds to unlock new cards isn't set in stone, it actually is 100% divided by the floor you're currently in, more or less. I think that having a 10% chance to unlock a card after beating the tenth floor isn't that crazy, and if you don't get cards on the previous floors, the odds get even better.

I'll be participating in a real life game jam this weekend, so I won't work on Tarot Trials, but you can expect an inception of this game jam game being completed in the middle of Tarot Trials, itself embedded in the middle of my work on 100RTBD!

Time spent on the project so far: 56 hours

TarotJam Entry 17

Now with 7 cards done out of 22 and about half the mechanics, I can say that the end is in sight for Tarot Trials, I've implemented some systems to help me test specific cards (as beforehand all I did was try again until I got the combination I wanted to test) and things are still going quite smoothly. Even with the depth of the mechanics I'm implementing on top of simple core systems, I think that a game will come out of this jam, no matter what. I think I'll try and think of a way to make the enemies scale automatically so I don't have to come up with 500 different enemy types. That's what slowed me down for Magic Darts and I kind of don't want to make the same error again. This should save me some time if I can figure out a solution quickly!

Time spent on the project so far: 53 hours

TarotJam Entry 16

Not much done today, I worked in the mechanics of The Hermit and I started thinking about monster buffs. I'm starting to think that I've bitten more than I could chew with this game? Yeah, maybe.

Time spent on the project so far: 51 hours

TarotJam Entry 15

Spells and enemy buffs are in and I'm up to six cards almost done. You can now decide to cast spells during your runs and they take cards from your chest, so it's a risk/reward balance act between having more cards for other purposes or using powerful abilities. Enemy buffs are drawn once at the beginning of each run and they act as a dual purpose; Adding some more random challenge to the game and making sure that you don't game the system too much by starting runs, casting all of your spells then quitting. 

There are still a few systems for me to create, such as equipment, end of run modifiers and level-up bonus cards, and content, like the other 15 cards and a big bunch of monsters, but I think that I'll be done before the end of the actual TarotJam, at least ;)

I'll cut corners on the whole balance aspect of the game, but not too much. As long as I can beat the game, everything will be fine. It's probably going to be too easy instead of being too hard, but to really make a well-balanced game would go beyond the scope of such a project. I'm having fun working on this, tho :D

Time spent on the project so far: 50 hours

TarotJam Entry 14

After you pick up your 4th tarot card, you learn how to cast spells, they are one-use abilities that consume your tarot cards inside your chest and do various things depending on which spell you pick. The actual spells aren't done yet, but the ability to cast them is there. I've also added the Magician class and map and I'm working on adding their enemies right now. This weekend I'll try to move forward with as many systems as possible in order to be closer to finishing the game.

Time spent on the project so far: 42 hours

TarotJam Entry 13

A new class + map combination was added, as well as a few more enemies to go with that new map. I've worked mostly on the order you unlock the tarot cards this morning, so not a lot of coding was done, but things should really pick up from here!

Time spent on the project so far: 40 hours

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TarotJam Entry 12

A few bugfixes, some testing and balance changes to the core systems, if yesterday was all about UI, today was more about mechanics. Still going on towards the completion of the project! I've been wondering if enemies should scale depending of where they are rather than having new enemies on each dungeon level, but I think having different enemies is better, although more time-consuming, we'll see how it goes!

Time spent on the project so far: 37 hours

TarotJam Entry 11

I know that this is a real joke, but I've spent the last hours working on menus for Tarot Trials, this is so far removed from how you would 'need' to proceed during a real Game Jam, but oh well, these internet two months affair give me some time to expand on certain niceties like menus and interfaces. 

All being told, when I'm done with this one, I should really be done with non-gameplay stuff. All that will be left will be to add the other cards, mechanics, progression, and I'll be done! A real piece of cake!

I also need to get back to 100RTBD someday..

Time spent on the project so far: 35 hours

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TarotJam Entry 10

A lot was done this weekend! I iterated over whether you found tarot cards or shards from them - meaning you needed more than one to get the full card - worked on the level up system, added the bestiary and a few more mechanics here and there. I'm currently adding the screen where you can see all the cards you've found and what they do.

Time spent on the project so far: 33 hours

TarotJam Entry 9

Now battles are slowly being built! It's going to take a while before the battle system is fully functional - mainly because all the tarot cards, mechanics and other systems aren't in yet - but I think that by the end of today you'll have the base for what battles will be. You now also can move everywhere you've moved before by clicking there, because why not? Direct movement to new tiles is still non-diagonal only, though.

Time spent on the project so far: 27 hours

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